Floral Park Holocaust survivor seeks to get back some of what Nazis stole

Eight decades ago, the Nazis forced Rosalie Simon into a Jewish ghetto and then a death camp, until American GI's arrived and miraculously, her young life was saved.

On Tuesday, the 93-year-old Floral Park resident finally got her chance to exact some economic justice for the horrors of the Holocaust by asking whether an American court can settle a class-action lawsuit over actions alleged long ago in a foreign country.

Simon is the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit filed by Jewish Hungarian Holocaust survivors and the subject of oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday about the property, money and other valuables pilfered by Nazi-occupied Hungary and who profited. The lawsuit alleges that the government of Hungary seized the belongings and delivered them to the Nazis. All these years later, much of what was stolen can't be recovered, but Simon and other plaintiffs hope the justices decide to allow them to seek compensation in an American courtroom.

The Supreme Court devoted 1½ hours of its highly sought-after court time on Tuesday morning listening to arguments in the case.

Simon, who traveled with relatives the night before to Washington, D.C., so they could sit in on the case, was thrilled to be there, she said in a phone interview after the hearing.

"From Auschwitz to the United States of America and to the Supreme Court is a big deal for me," she said. "Because if you live to see that and be here, that is an honor for me."

Simon said it was difficult for her to hear the proceedings, even with a hearing aid, but she remained optimistic they will prevail.

Her son, Mitchell J. Simon, of Oceanside, also attended the proceeding. He said it was an unforgettable experience.

"The fact that it got this far to the highest court," he said, "is a big accomplishment in itself."

Rosalie Simon’s case was first filed 14 years ago and made its way through various courts before landing in the nation’s highest.

The lawsuit asserts that in 1944, as Nazi Germany was headed toward defeat late in World War II, the government of Occupied Hungary and its national railway, Magyar Allamvasutak Zrt., stole the families’ property as it deported more than 560,000 Jews to death camps. Simon said they took everything her family owned.

Oral arguments before the nine justices Tuesday wrestled with questions about the whereabouts of any profits from the stolen property and whether some of the money made it to the United States, giving the U.S. judicial jurisdiction.

A defense lawyer raised questions about the far-reaching and international impact of the case if they decided in favor of the plaintiffs. Would Japanese Americans who were interred in camps in the United States during World War II, for instance, also be able to sue the U.S. in another country if that nation had laws like the United States that generally prohibit such lawsuits?

There were questions about "commingling" of money and references to Cuba expropriating sugar from an American-owned company, with the profits sitting in an American bank.

Lawyers for Hungary and the railroad contend U.S. courts do not have jurisdiction in the case. They cite the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), which grants foreign nations immunity against such lawsuits. They also argue that it is highly unlikely that any proceeds obtained from the seized properties were "commingled" with other funds that ended up in the United States.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs contend that an exception to the FSIA should be made because the case stems from "probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the history of the world," according to court papers. "With tragic efficiency, Hungarian government officials" along with national railroad employees "shipped hundreds of thousands of Jews to their deaths."

Simon, who was rescued from Auschwitz by American troops in 1945, sees the court case and Tuesday’s hearing as a long-overdue retribution against the Nazis, her son said.

"She’s 93 years old, she wasn’t going to miss it for anything," he said. "That to her is her victory."